


Red and Blue Make

by onecent



Category: Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Character Death, Clint Barton ponders his life, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 12:03:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4918864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onecent/pseuds/onecent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint has always liked purple, for no reason he can quantify. Who has a reason for their favorite color?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red and Blue Make

Tony calls them in after the battle. _All Avengers to the cliff base._ His voice is somber, and no one responds except to start trailing in.

Clint had been at the top of the cliff. He likes being up high, looking out over the entire battle, knowing exactly what is going on without being in the midst of it. And it means that everything is still pretty clean up where he's been. A brilliant blue sky and a white, snow-colored plain stretched out beneath it. He shivers, feeling the sweat he'd worked up during the fight starting to freeze in the cold.

Below him, he can see his teammates gathering. They stand out against the snow. Much like he probably stands out in his purple and black outfit. Much like his purple and black bruises stand out against his skin. Purple really seems to be his color. Clint thinks about colors as he walks down the cliff to join them.

Tony is red. Not just his suit, he himself embodies the color red. He is always jumping into action, jumping into movement. Practically on fire, blazing through task after task. Natasha is much the same. She has red in her ledger, she'd say. But she doesn't realize that she _is_ red, will always be red, the action already in motion. Even Thor is red, even though he has calmed down a lot since Clint first met him.

Clint envies their sureness and their ability to charge forward no matter the struggle.

Steve is blue. Steve is calm, waiting to get all the information before he strikes. He's the water, cutting through a canyon wall with deliberate movements and rushing in a waterfall over a cliff. It's a force that can never truly be stopped or tamed, but one that is also patient and able to soothe and smooth rough edges.

Clint envies him, too.

Red and blue make purple.

Bruce is purple. Or he's green. Or he's both...he's something different. It's not quite a mix of red and blue, the desire to act and the surety of knowing how to strike. It's a desire to avoid acting at all, to avoid being a part of the battle but jumping into it anyway. It's wanting to help and not knowing how. That part, at least, Clint understands.

Clint has always liked purple, for no reason he can quantify. Who has a reason for their favorite color? He supposes if he had to say, he likes its in-betweenness. And he's always been in between. Between homes, between jobs, between people. Never exactly one thing or another. Not quite a kid or an adult, not quite a runaway or a participant, not quite a bad guy or a good guy. A little of both thrown together to make a person.

He's also probably something in between his teammates. Not the red of fiery action or the blue of purposeful movement, but hovering in between. Cautiously waiting to strike, hoping to find a good moment without really having a way to go. Purple.

The Avengers was always a mix of people. Clint's often wondered where he fit in with his teammates. He's not a god or a god-destroyer. He's not a super soldier or a super genius, not even a super spy. Is it possible he's something in between? Is he just the natural result of what happens when you throw these people together? Red and blue make Hawkeye? Or has he always been something that just fit inside the cracks, and they've always needed something between them to keep them molded together?

Clint reaches the end of the path down the cliffside. Everyone else is already gathered. Tony's crouched on the ground. Bruce is curled up on himself, de-Hulked and rocking back and forth in the snow. Thor stands, his back to the wind and his head bowed. Natasha is frozen, standing, staring. Steve...

Clint looks down at Steve, who he's already seen from the top of the cliff. His blue uniform is soaked through with red blood.

Clint was wrong. Red and blue don't make purple. Red and blue don't make Hawkeye.

Red and blue make death.


End file.
